Tango01 | 08 Aug 2017 12:50 p.m. PST |
"mark the 90th birthday of the People's Liberation Army on Aug. 1, China's President Xi Jinping went to the Inner Mongolian steppe to the site where Genghis Khan began his conquest of Eurasia. There, at Zhurihe, he was welcomed by an impressive display of China's martial might: a parade of Chinese troops, tanks, helicopters, aircraft and missiles. But the main course was a massive war game demonstrating the state of China‘s preparation to "fight and win" future military conflicts. For what war is the PLA preparing? Recent events should make the answer abundantly clear. In July, North Korea conducted two ICBM tests that put the American heartland within reach of its nuclear weapons. In response, the U.S. flew two B-1 bombers over the Korean peninsula to send the message, in the words of Pacific Air Forces commander Gen. Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy, that the U.S. is "ready to respond with rapid, lethal and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing."…" Main page link A paper tiger? (smile)
Amicalement Armand
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Gear Pilot | 08 Aug 2017 3:20 p.m. PST |
Who's side will they be on is the bigger question. |
Tango01 | 09 Aug 2017 11:11 a.m. PST |
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Cacique Caribe | 09 Aug 2017 3:16 p.m. PST |
Who's side? Their own. And if things get too hot with NK and the South China Sea, China will simply get the Iranians to refocus our panic elsewhere. We have become so dense and have developed such short attention spans that we keep thinking that all these things are unrelated or coincidental. Dan PS. Or maybe they're just genuinely preparing to help us out if, by some chance, we in the US were to suddenly suffer some natural catastrophe or something: :) link TMP link TMP link |
Ottoathome | 09 Aug 2017 3:25 p.m. PST |
They hate America. Everyone hates America nowdays. Even the French, Germans, and probably everyone else but the British. John Keegan noted this at a lecture I heard about 15 years ago. They hate us because we won World War II. If North Korea nuked San Francisco or Honolulu the rest of the world would stand up and cheer and say "hit em again! And threaten sanctions against us if we responded, or resisted. |
Cacique Caribe | 09 Aug 2017 3:30 p.m. PST |
Otto: "They hate America. Everyone hates America nowadays." Lol. That reminds me of the song Political Science (one of these should play fine): YouTube link YouTube link The only truly new development in that hate-fest is really in the growing number of our very own fellow citizens who, since the 60s, have sided with our enemies and have joined that hate America club. That's the group that will gladly open the door for everyone who is looking to do us (and them) harm. So those are the America haters that give me the biggest reason for concern. Dan PS. While checking out photos for this other thread I found a large number of American professors and students who would rather defend NK (and just about every enemy of our country) than defend the US: TMP link |
Old Glory | 09 Aug 2017 10:19 p.m. PST |
BUT, oh how the s will squeal if a collapse of some type actually happens? Jealousy, envy, covetousness, etc., are very very ugly traits!! Regards Russ Dunaway |
Ottoathome | 10 Aug 2017 7:49 a.m. PST |
Dear Cacique I agree. Of course if we were to complain and say that we hate them right back we would be dawghoused. You are correct. Only America can be blamed, only America can be at fault. The people you talk about are right here. |
tookey23 | 10 Aug 2017 1:16 p.m. PST |
In my travels to many places that are openly hostile to the USA I've yet to meet anyone of them saying that hate the USA because of WW2, I would doubt many in Africa, Middle East and Asia even have the faintest knowledge of any facts about the allies winning ww2 at all. I talked to Afghan guy who was selling Osama Bin laden 9/11 paraphernalia in Pakistan and he simply said he hates the USA because of US foriegn policy or more the fact the US was constantly interferring in other countries affairs by force. It was the same in Tanzinia and Iran, but oddly I never met anyone in Syria who disliked America (This was in mid 2000's). Whereas the Chinese have been quite saavy for decades in slowly investing in other countries (see Chinese investment\industry in Africa\Pacific) so they already have leverage in some places andvery little open hostility back to them. (Chinese military vessels are often seen in South Pacific waters with little fanfare) The Chinese are ready because they are the biggest military in the world so I guess why they should not be ready ? It would not surprise me if in any NKR – Korea\US conflict that the Chinese would roll in to simply secure the fossil fuel resources that are needed for its industry and to have a puppet state inbetween the South and its border. |
Ottoathome | 10 Aug 2017 2:33 p.m. PST |
I'm from an earlier generation than you. They won't say it but that's the real reason. Tell me, do you speak any foreign languages? I do. Very interesting what people say when they don't know you speak their language German, French and Italian. About a decade ago when I was in Europe I sat there and spoke only American. Amazing what they said about America when they didn't know I understood every word they said. Trust me, they hate us. |
Dwindling Gravitas | 10 Aug 2017 3:09 p.m. PST |
America "won" WWII? Hmm .. OK … :-) |
Cacique Caribe | 10 Aug 2017 3:23 p.m. PST |
Otto: "Tell me, do you speak any foreign languages? I do. Very interesting what people say when they don't know you speak their language" That is absolutely true! The things people will say are really incredible. They can range from amusing to alarming. :) Dan |
Editor in Chief Bill | 10 Aug 2017 7:27 p.m. PST |
Whereas the Chinese have been quite saavy for decades in slowly investing in other countries (see Chinese investment\industry in Africa\Pacific) so they already have leverage in some places andvery little open hostility back to them. You'd be surprised how much resentment is being directed at the Chinese, because of the way their managers oppress their foreign workers. Chinese tourists are also earning a negative reputation due to poor behavior. |
Elenderil | 11 Aug 2017 5:46 a.m. PST |
Us Brits are probably second on the list after you guys. In France there have been desecrations of war memorials and war cemeteries with slogans such as "Roast Beefs go home" although not that well spelled. For goodness sake the poor lads lying in the ground would have loved to have gone home. Most of the Middle East and Africa has an issue with us because we were a colonial power. |
FatherOfAllLogic | 11 Aug 2017 6:35 a.m. PST |
Everybody hates everybody else, it is the human condition. |
Ottoathome | 11 Aug 2017 7:39 a.m. PST |
Dear Editor in chief Bill That's only the half of it. Chinese investment in the third world is tumbling. The Chinese have found that investing in the third world is throwing money down a rat-hole. They've been pulling out for a decade. So have Indian firms. Pretty bad when India drops you like a hot potato. I've seen this in business journals, but also confirmed by human Intel. Many Chinese firms hire Chinese Americans for obvious reasons. So did my company. They all talk. They told us that investment by them in the third world just didn't pay, the local stole or broke or vandalized the equipment and plants or just didn't show up for work. When they did they sat around and did nothing. They wound up bringing over their own labor crews to run the facilities, giving up on the locals and there simply to pull out the resources. Our purchasing managers and others in other countries were pulling out of the third world also. India has brought most of its business back home. Follow the money. All items have a cost which is composed of three things materials, labor, and overhead. Overhead is the cost for executive staff, taxes, lights, water, everything to maintain the facility- also shipping from plant to customer etc. These are direct costs. Of the three, Labor is usually 75% of the cost or more. Companies sent products overseas to cut down on the labor. This of course ships jobs overseas but that labor cost of 75% can drop to 8 or 9%. This makes the horrendously increased shipping costs quite palatable. Businesses went to Japan, China, Indochina and others for this cheap labor. As these societies improved because of full employment, their labor costs increased first because they had to pay more for labor and competition for jobs went down. THEIR purchasing agents sent their jobs to even less well paying parts of the world. That's all well and good if the place you sent it to actually can produces something. When they steal, break or just show up and do no work, it doesn't matter. There's no product for the investment. Our sales agent told us about a friend in a company who had been trying to get a plant going in Africa for TWENTY YEARS and had not gotten one injection molded part out of it. They would send over brand new hi-tech routers and dies and molding machines. The foreman would sell them to his local scrap dealer. Other companies said that while they plants were running, the bribery costs tot he local chiefs became too much even for the Chinese, and if the product at all had a street value, it was hijacked and nothing got home. At this point those huge costs for transportation and shipment become unbearable. They decided that it's cheaper in the long run to simply build the plant in America where you can get SOME margin rather than none. So the Chinese leave and the locals hate them. Our own company had similar problems in China itself. we were a manufacturer of highly technical, high grade electronics equipment for television rebroadcasting. Every year after the Chinese New year festival, the plants would STOP, STOP DEAD! We had to stock up before that to carry us through the "fallow season." Everyone went home to their farms hundreds of miles away in the interior. Then after New Year, it took about three months to get back to full running efficiency because many of those employees did not come back! Therefore new people had to be hired with ZIP knolede of how to make the components we needed and the learning curve had to be gone through all over again. See, competition for jobs is so fierce over there that the skilled workers have no trouble finding jobs. Chinese companies in order to pay the low labor that American firms are looking for, have to reach far into the interior to essentially get peasants and unskilled workers to come to the cities and work in the plants. This means sometimes a huge retraining process. But these "peasants" essentially don't want to be there. They come, work for a year or three and then take the money they have made and go back and capitalize their farms with it and they don't come back. In the case of my company we finally had to face the music and certain positively, absolutely essential, could not live without assemblies we simply jobbed out to American or European firms, bit the bullet and paid the price. We did get a benefit out of it. We were the highest quality firm in the market and we reaped the benefit of when some system out there went kablooie because they used substandard parts, the firm called in ripped out their systems and put in ours, without even trying to analyze why the other system didn't work. You see, in our business, there is no "make do" with cheaper. It's a question of a choice between getting a television signal, or a black screen. |
Ottoathome | 11 Aug 2017 7:43 a.m. PST |
Getting back to the "China is ready to go to war" topic, I see this morning China has said it will go to war for North Korea, unless North Korea attacks first. Nice to see we are back to good old realpolitik diplomacy than the old "we are not worthy, we are not worth, we are not worthy politics of "I apogizes for everything" That's a nic old diplomatic formula which is aimed more at the ally than the enemy. |
Cacique Caribe | 11 Aug 2017 11:58 a.m. PST |
Otto: "I see this morning China has said it will go to war for North Korea, unless North Korea attacks first." That policy never really changed for China, because North Korea keeps Japan and the West distracted for them. It's just that you don't often hear their leaders be so straightforward about their real allegiance and intentions. Ambiguity has been useful to them for a long time, while it lulled us into believing they might have become our friends, but something has finally prompted them to show their true colors once again. Newsflash Western leaders, its time to re categorize your "friend". Dan PS. I wonder if China has made a similar pledge to support Iran, as long as Iran doesn't strike the first blow. Perhaps that's why Iran keeps harassing our ships. |
tookey23 | 11 Aug 2017 5:16 p.m. PST |
If it took 20 years (if true) to try to get a company running in Africa then it sounds more like the problem was on the management side than he local workers. Chinese threat wouold be interesting- A far stretched US military against an army with no existing deployments overseas (Apart from a few man made islands) |
Cacique Caribe | 11 Aug 2017 5:50 p.m. PST |
It's funny how, based on EXACTLY the same information, the headlines on these two papers are focusing on completely different messages: "China Warns North Korea: You're On Your Own If You Go After The US" link "China To Defend N. Korea From Regime Change If US Strikes First" link One of them makes China look benign, almost helpful, while the other one exposes it as part of the ongoing problem (as an enabler and sponsor). So which of these two news providers is trying to tell the truth and which one is giving us cattle nothing but spin (and why)? What does the spinner have to gain here by such a horrible stunt on the people they're supposed to keep informed? Dan |
Haitiansoldier | 11 Aug 2017 6:31 p.m. PST |
This is why I need to move to Haiti ASAP. North Korea is getting out of control and scaring me. At least I don't live in Hawaii or CA. (I dislike both of those states). This must have been what it felt like from 41-45 in those areas of the country. |
Cacique Caribe | 11 Aug 2017 8:58 p.m. PST |
Well, if an American "first strike" happens (or is fabricated) China will add its arsenal of accurate long range missiles to NK's puny ones. Dan PS. The Caribbean might be ok for a little bit, until food and medicines run out. Or until Cuba and Venezuela come and harvest everyone for food or forced labor. |